Wednesday, April 23, 2014

From Excitement to Excitement

This picture was taken on the day our kids met up at the airport in Bali. Since they live alll over creation and normally only get to see each other once a year, they were pretty excited to see each other. I think they were also pretty excited about the adventure ahead. What do you think? I’m sure they were all happy to get home to their kids and their responsibilities but not quite this excited:

By the time we reached Jakarta they were back in the trenches, being responsible and back to work at home and at their workplaces. That’s just a different kind of excitement!

Our events in Jakarta were so much fun. After my fun trip to the zoo (about a 3 hour round trip where poor Richard had to stay at the hotel and work on a deadline for a new book), we were greeted by the Principal and several professors at a College of Religion where we chatted briefly and a delicious dinner was served.

Next we met with a battery of reporters from the Christian media. They had such good questions and most seemed to understand our English, even though we were working through an interpreter.

Our hosts for the entire tour were the Weichers who arranged the events in each of three countries. They were full-time volunteer Public Relations Missionaries for our church for the Indonesia, Malasia and Singapore area. What a delight it was to meet them and discover mutual friends and family connections. Amazingly, they have a baby granddaughter with similar heart issues to our little granddaughter, due to arrive at any moment. We had so much fun with them!

Our Jakarta hosts, who had driven me to the zoo and given me a wealth of information on what we saw along the way, were Jemmy and Indah, who run international tours for people who love to see golf tournaments. Their job is almost as fun as ours! They were so fun to talk to!

Indah even bought Richard and I wonderful Indonesian shirts. I needed a different outfit to wear mine with, which I hadn’t brought so “one of these things does not belong here” would be an appropriate name for this picture:

What a surprise popped up before me when a young mother introduced herself as “the one who organized all of Saren and April’s Power of Moms retreats in Sydney, Australia last year”. Her husband and family had just been transferred to Jakarta where her husband works in the embassy! What fun it was to meet her!

We had a lovely evening with a delightful audience and an excellent interpreter. What made it double fun was that one of our former missionaries (one of our best) when Richard served as a Mission President in London from 1976-79 was now a full-time Senior Missionary in Jakarta doing amazing things in the area of Humanitarian Service in Jakarta. Their incredible projects from providing huge numbers of wheelchairs to eye glasses to those in such desperate need just blew us away.

What a tremendous good the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is doing in that part of the world. Our beloved “Elder Lucerini” had picked us up at the airport and we were joined by his wonderful wife Mary (Sister Lucerini) and the Stake President as well as the Weichers and Jemmy and Indah for a lovely dinner on the night we arrived. They had all worked hard to make the event successful!

Hard to believe all that time had gone by! We loved everyone we met, which included a lot of full-time missionaries serving in that area!

And so many eager minds ready to learn about how to create strong families!

Our stop in Jakarta was never to be forgotten! Many thanks to all of you who made it happen!